Dr Carl Wright is Secretary-General Emeritus and Board member, Commonwealth Local Government Forum, CLGF which he founded in 1995 and oversaw until 2016.
Dr Wright held the diplomatic post of Assistant Director, Commonwealth Secretariat 1988-94 where he also worked with the UN, EU and other organisations and oversaw Commonwealth programmes for victims of apartheid. He was previously senior official at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and first Director of the Commonwealth Trade Union Council 1974-88. In 1973 he was among the first UK nationals employed at the European Commission. He has also served as international election observer and on a number of global policy commissions.
He co-founded the Canterbury SDG Forum and Climate Action Partnership in 2018-19 and later led official delegations at COP26, COP27 and COP 29. He further helped to establish and chairs the European Local Partnerships & Twinning Group which promotes UK-EU economic, educational, sporting and cultural links.
He is author of Global Citizen: Grass Roots Activism and High Diplomacy (Hansib Publications, 2022) which sets out his local government and wider international career. He has published a number of recent articles on climate change including on climate finance.
